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T O P I C R E V I E W

mach3valkyrie

Today marks the 47th anniversary of the launch of the Gemini 10 mission with John Young and Mike Collins aboard. It was a complex 3 day dual Agena rendezvous and EVA mission with a 35 second late afternoon launch window.

With nothing happening in U.S. manned launches from the Cape, it seems fitting to think about our history when we had a lot going on.

Headshot

Gemini 10 was really a great mission, the only one to rendezvous with two different Agena target vehicles. Sadly, that lost Hasselblad magazine would have shown the world Mike Collins' spacewalk to the inert Gemini 8 Agena where he recovered a micrometeoroid experiment.

Pitulfsatten

The capsule was an exhibit for a ten year period (1986-96) at the Technical Museum in Oslo. They also have Tom Stafford flight suit from Gemini 6. Anyway, I must have visited the museum on dozens of occasions just to stand there and look inside it.

Remember the first time I saw it back in 86. I knew it wasn't up to date technology, but I was still a bit surprised to see how little "spacecrafty" it looked. It looked like something made during WWII. Stove switches and mechanical displays and all. Still an impressive machine. It did the job.

Furthermore I got even more impressed by the astronauts. I would have turned bonkers by claustrophobia if I had to spend days in there, no matter how much of a kick the view and the thrill of flying in space would be.